Hey Girl, Is He Everything You Wanted In Me
by you're running wild
Summary: College AU. Riku and Cloud don't know how to break up. Cloud/Riku. Brief Leon/Sora and Kairi/random girls.
1. one

_Author's Notes: _AU. Warnings for language, drug use, and suggested sex. Mature. Cloud/Riku, brief Leon/Sora and Kairi/random girls. It's set at a college university on Destiny Islands. Through a small scope. Forgive my fumbling. This is the most self-indulgent piece of shit. Hope you enjoy anyway. Thank you for reading.

_Disclaimer: _I don't own anything.

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_Hey Girl, Is He Everything You Wanted In Me_

_One_

Riku glances down at the white line of cocaine in front of him. There's a dollar bill rolled up into a thin column next to it. He hasn't used the glass coffee table since he bought it – stuffed it into a back room of his apartment that's shaped like an overly large closet with no beam to hold clothes, but a door that locks from the outside. He wonders if he should have locked himself in.

There's hardly enough room for him and the table. He had to stack three cushions from his couch to sit on because he couldn't fit a chair. He wanted the right height for the table, and made two trips to the couch after testing out two cushions and realizing they weren't tall enough.

Across the glass table, he leans closer to smell the cocaine. All he catches is the faint scent of gasoline, like he'd just filled up his tank but drove off with the cap open, gasoline sloshing all over inside and splattering out if he makes a sharp stop at a red light.

Riku picks up the dollar bill. He aligns it with his nose, bends down, and inhales the line. First, his hands begin to feel numb, and then his vision sharpens, dilating, expanding his pupils into something whole, becoming focused on the way the colors slur out from their objects. He can't see anything in the dark closet. The overhead fan has two blubs attached and the left one's been smashed. The light touches on the tops of everything. It illuminates the back of the walls, the three storage boxes he has in the corner adjacent from the door, the short bookshelf across from him, empty except for a collection of dust on the top row – but it never sinks in; he can't make out anything past that, the tops, just a magnified darkness.

Riku imagines he can. The yellow light is crisp. The exact lines of the shelf stand out at sharp angles.

He stands up and reaches to pull the chain chord hanging from the fan. The light switches off.

An hour later, Riku lays face down on his kitchen floor. The large pieces of brown tile blink back at him, too close to do much except for stare. He watches them. He thinks he can see their pores – the way the color separates into grains, the individual pigments collecting to form one, long brush stroke.

He can feel his pulse thudding at quick intervals against his ribcage, pace too fast for him to count to, to measure in any concrete way. The noise sends shock-waves through his ears. Riku tells the tiles, "This is disappointing."

When he rolls over to face the ceiling, his mouth arches into a frown. His pulse is now centered somewhere between his bellybutton and the back of his spinal cord, at the end, by his lower back. The tiles haven't said anything, so Riku tells the ceiling, "You guys suck."

The ceiling doesn't say anything, either.

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Riku wakes up with his fist stuffed all the way into his mouth on his couch without the three cushions. His knuckles rub raw against the roof of his mouth, wet with his teeth, from sinking in all night. The back of his throat's dry. He tries to cough around his fist before he pulls it out, but it catches at his lungs, the oxygen stuck, and he ends up spitting. When his hand's out, there are red marks itched into the veins behind his knuckles, tiny indents of his teeth. He stretches his hand out, flattening his palm, lengthening his fingers as he spreads them apart. Saliva drips down to his wrist.

He wipes his hand on his shirt, pushing his palm against his stomach, before blinking at the ceiling. The sun's coming through the window behind him. Riku can feel the heat against his back.

He rolls over, his t-shirt sticking with hot sweat to his chest, tangling around his middle. He shifts his face into the pocket between the arm rest and back cushion, pushing his face as far into the corner as it will go, and closes his eyes again.

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Riku makes it to class an hour after it starts. When he'd woken up again, he fumbled for the clock on his iPhone shoved under the mattress in his bedroom. He'd cleared the screen on his iPhone, said, "Fuck," when he realized he had twenty minutes to get to campus, threw his iPhone at the wall in his living room, was unable to hear the crack as it fell several inches short from the wall, skidding over in its plastic cover across his hard wood floor, and went to his bathroom to start a shower. The hot water did nothing to wake Riku up, his eyelids clinging together, refusing to open fully, and when he switched it to cold, it wasn't any better. He'd changed his shirt and applied Degree to his underarms. He had to double back to his front door after realizing he was touching his Jeep's pedals with bare feet, his toes curling around the brake, and locked his front door for the last time with two pairs of sandals, mismatched, in both hands.

He'd spent a handful of time in the bathroom on campus upstairs from his classroom brushing his bangs out with his fingers.

His hair is still wet. He glances at the room number, B56, and puts his hands up to push both doors of the lecture hall open.

When the lecture ends, he falters through the lecture hall's double doors, snagging his shirt on the handle before pulling it hard until it comes loose. The handle tears the bottom of his shirt into a hole large enough for him to fit his pinky finger through. He looks at it, mouth flat lining, wondering if he has the same shirt in another color at his apartment.

It's bright outside the lecture hall. The sun's set in the corner of the sky so that it hits Riku directly between the eyes, at the center of his forehead, while he walks south from the building towards the parking lot. He squints and digs around in the smaller compartment of his backpack for his car keys. He'd left his iPhone at home on his living room floor. He had kicked it once and heard it smack into the wall, half of a satisfied smile lurking around his mouth, when he'd headed out of his apartment for the second time.

He has to stop mid-way to the parking lot in-between a row of tall palm trees and the Business building that was remodeled last month to look like a corporate skyscraper, built with thick sheets of mirrored glass, because he can't find his keys. He pulls his backpack up to his face, peering inside, shoving his pens, Orbit gum, stack of rubber-banded index cards, and Bic lighter around. He looks for the clink of his keys and the green peace sign key-chain he has attached. He can't find it anywhere, so he squats down into a crouch, his right knee coming down to hit the cement, and turns his backpack upside down until he's dumped everything out.

Riku finds his keys hooked around a pencil and loose pink eraser underneath the Orbit gum.

As he pulls it out, extracting it in a slow, careful motion, he hears Sora call from his left, shouting, "Riku! Hey, wait up."

Riku doesn't glance up, but he does tell his key-chain, "Fuck off. You can't be serious with this shit." His cheeks feel warmed and his voice comes out hoarse. It itches the base of his throat as he pronounces each syllable. He stares at the key-chain like it'll have his answer. When it doesn't, he shoves his keys into his front pocket, grabs his stuff in handfuls and pushes it back into the small compartment.

He's bending to stand up when Sora catches up to him. Sora breathes out deeply after short inhales, like he'd jogged because he was worried Riku would leave before Sora made it over. Riku wonders how loud Sora had to yell if he was that far away.

Sora's dressed in a pull-over gray sweatshirt with the strings tied together in a bow and jeans. He smiles when Riku looks at him, and says, "Jesus, you look like you didn't sleep a wink last night." He still smiles while he speaks, and Riku finds his mouth forming a sneer, rolling his eyes, in return. He says, "Tell me something I don't know."

Sora laughs like he's startled into it, unsure if he shouldn't, and shrugs his shoulder to hitch his backpack up higher. "Well," He doesn't frown. " I figured you'd want to know."

Riku watches Sora until Sora shifts, squirming with the ends of his sleeves, pulling them out over his fingers, fidgeting, and finally says, "Wanna grab a bite?" He commits to the smile once more, but his lips are closed over his teeth.

Riku says, "Actually I was heading out." He tries not to look when Sora bites his bottom lip, nodding like he understands even though Riku knows he doesn't.

Riku convinces himself to reach out and squeeze half of Sora's shoulder into his palm. He says, "I owe you one, okay? Text me sometime."

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In his apartment, Riku lays on his bedroom floor, holding his iPhone an inch from his face, and breathes out loud enough that it shocks his lungs for a moment before they exhale into submission. He scrolls through his contact list, his thumb playing with the touch screen, before tapping "Reno," and composing a text message. He types, "I want my money back. That shit you gave me was a waste."

He watches the text message send, and lays the iPhone on his chest. He folds his arms behind him into a pillow. He knows Reno won't reply.

His bedroom walls are off-white and bare. He has one poster of Destiny Island's landscape, a bright shot of the beach. The poster curls over at the top left where the tape has come loose from the adhesive wearing dry. It sits across the room from his bed in the corner. He has a set of faded green sheets that he bought from Goodwill with a crumpled ten dollar bill. The fitted sheet is meant for a queen and too big for his twin mattress. It's baggy all the way across his mattress, but it never comes off, too much material tucked too far underneath. His top sheet's a twin, though. It's usually under the box spring when he wakes up, half-tangled around one foot. He'll lean over to tug it out and toss it over his torso, hugging his pillow over his head, falling back into his dream before he realizes he woke up.

There's one sliding closet next to his poster where he keeps his clothes organized in neat piles of long-sleeves, t-shirts, jeans, pajamas, boxer-briefs, and paired socks on the blue carpet floor. It started taking too long to get his dresser moved in; he already had placed his clothes in the closet by the time he could afford a weekend off to get the dresser moved. He figured it was easier to leave it with his parents anyway, with the majority of his clothes, at home.

Now, Riku sighs at his ceiling. He pulls his phone back up to his face, separating his lips from his teeth, and opens a new text message. He types, "Can you come over," doesn't bother with hitting the symbol button to make a question mark, and enters "Cloud" in the address field. His thumb hesitates over the send button. He watches it shaking minutely – he's only able to see it if he squints. His thumb presses send.

He sets the phone on the carpet beside him, keeps watching the ceiling, and wonders if he has any cocaine left.

His phone vibrates before he can get up to go look for the answer. Cloud's texted back to say, "In class. Out at four."

Riku raises his eyebrow, reading the text twice, before he types, "Come then," and presses send all in one motion.

He has a cigarette on the patio attached off the side of his living room that stretches out over a parking lot with fresh gravel and looks across from another brick apartment building. It's not a view, but he thinks it's better than looking at the inside of his house.

He has to spark his Bic lighter twice before the fluid takes and a flame catches. He presses the flame up against the end of his Parliament Light, and inhales. He keeps one pack of cigarettes stored in his short desk, adjacent from his bed in his room, tucked in a black drawer underneath the desk's surface. The drawer swings out fast enough to fall out if you pull hard. His seventeen-inch _Hewlett-Packard_ laptop sits on top of the desk. It's too thick and too wide to carry around the house with ease or bring to class, but it's the reason he didn't put a television in his living room. He keeps his other pack of cigarettes in his Jeep, crammed underneath the driver's seat with empty fast-food burger wrappers and Starbucks coffee cup lids. There's a back-up orange Bic lighter in the cup holder of the passenger door on the driver's side.

He pulls the cigarette up to his mouth, inhales again, and blows out a stream of smoke. The nicotine isn't satisfying, but it feels better than the oxygen.

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Riku stands at his kitchen stove with bare feet and his jeans rolled up three times into a cuff that cuts off under his calves. The tile's cold against the soles of his feet, so he rocks forwards onto the balls of his feet and backwards onto his heels continuously. He has an open-faced grilled cheese sandwich and butter melting in a medium sized pan that has most of the Teflon scrapped off, long rust streaks running down the pan like veins, on top of the stove.

When the sandwich's finished, he eats it in Bounty paper towel over his wide, white sink. His mouth still tastes like smoke, curling around his tongue, heavy in his gums, and caving down as his teeth bite. The texture of the bread feels light, hardly an impact, and by the time he swallows, he can't remember what it felt like.

He eats less than half of the sandwich before tossing it until his trashcan.

Later, there's a knock on his apartment door. Riku rubs his fingers through his hair, pulls at his shirt, and walks to the door. When he opens it, Cloud's standing there in jeans and a black v-neck, mouth working around a frown, flip phone grasped between two of his fingers and his other hand pulled up into a small wave. He says, "I tried to call, but you didn't pick up." He talks like he has to think about it, slow, half a question stuck somewhere in the middle of each word. His eyebrows begin to furrow together towards the center of his forehead.

Riku says, "I left my phone in the other room." He reaches out and circles Cloud's wrist between his fingers. "Come on, you're late."

Cloud stumbles forward with Riku's insistence, but keeps almost laughing, saying, "Hey, wait, what are you doing," like he's not sure if it's supposed to be funny, all the way until Riku's pulled him inside, hand still around Cloud's wrist, and shut the door behind them. Riku doesn't let go of Cloud while he turns the lock on his door.

Cloud stares at Riku for a moment, lips shut around a silent huff, before he tugs lightly with his wrist. Riku looks at his hand and forces his fingers to become slack, a dead weight. Cloud pulls his wrist away in an easy slide; he turns to walk further into the living room, setting his backpack down in-between two steps. It makes a loud noise as it hits the hard wood floor. Riku watches Cloud walk to the couch, where he stops and looks at it. Cloud glances at Riku, confusion heavy in the creases around his eyes and mouth, as he says, "What happened to your cushions?"

Riku shrugs, "Long story." He shrugs again when Cloud keeps looking at him like he'll come up with another answer, and doesn't hesitate to take three long steps up to Cloud, near enough to grab his shoulders with his palms, and pull his face closer. Riku presses his mouth to Cloud's. He kisses Cloud until Cloud starts to respond, bringing his hands to cup behind Riku's head, fingers smoothing across his hair, titling his mouth for a better angle, so that their lips can slide against each other. Riku opens his mouth, pressing harder, more fully to Cloud's, and tightens his fingers on Cloud's shoulder. He feels Cloud's shirt scrunch beneath his fingernails, the fabric bundling into his hand, and he tugs at it, tugs until Cloud's even closer, until Cloud's hands respond to slide from Riku's head down his spine, pressing flat against his back, and circle to the sides of his hips where they squeeze.

Cloud turns his face to the side, breath coming out as a sharp exhale, and Riku reaches up to kiss him again, tugging once more at his shoulders. But Cloud tightens his hands on Riku's hips to hold him in place, saying, "Hang on, just, wait a minute." Cloud pulls his head back to look at Riku.

Riku can feel the weight of Cloud's gaze, heavy against his cheeks, which are warmed, against his eyes and neck. He looks at the floor. The wood is cold against the soles of his feet here, too. He feels Cloud's hands restraining him, the hot, weighted pressure above his hip bone. He can feel each one of Cloud's fingers, long and slim, pressing through his shirt into his skin. Riku says, "What? Why'd you stop." He doesn't look at Cloud, instead lifting his gaze to somewhere over Cloud's left shoulder.

He hears Cloud breathe out again before Cloud says, "Are you okay?" Riku can't see his expression but he imagines Cloud's eyebrows are furrowed together again.

Riku says, "Yeah, I'm fine." He shrugs, and looks at Cloud briefly before kissing him, open-mouthed. He says, "I just missed you." Riku kisses him again, and then kisses below his jaw, clenching his teeth into a small bite, releasing the skin and leaving his lips there. He says to Cloud's jaw, "Are you gonna fuck me or not?"

Cloud laughs. It rumbles beneath Riku's hand, his mouth, rubs against his chest from where he's pressed against Cloud. It's a low, deep laugh, as if Cloud's honestly amused. Cloud says, "Yeah." He shifts his chin down to meet Riku's mouth. "Yeah, don't worry. I'm gonna fuck you."

Riku can't catch his breath.


	2. two

_Hey Girl, Is He Everything You Wanted In Me_

_Two_

Cloud's gone some time before Riku wakes up in his bed. Riku's sheets are twisted underneath his legs, and he wakes up with a shock, panic kicking in his chest, from trying to move his legs and feeling the unknown resistance. His hands feel stupid, dumb, numb from sleep and his eyes keep slipping shut while he tries to separate the sheet from his legs. He falls asleep again hunched over his pillow with his legs stuck out at an awkward angle, half-way under his body and half-way falling off the bed. There's a moment where he realizes he's alone, but it doesn't sink in through the sleepy fog until he's already being pulled into another dream. His chest caves, a rough sob bubbling up through his mouth, fingers tightening into each other. His sheets feel cold, and then he's asleep.

When Riku wakes up the second time, he holds his forehead in his hands while he waits for coffee to brew in his kitchen. He's wearing the jeans from two days ago but he lost his shirt somewhere between his bedroom and living room. He leans with both elbows on the counter top and tells his coffee maker, "Could you hurry?"

It makes a choking, gurgling sound, like water's rushing and getting caught on its way down the filter. Riku figures that's probably the best answer it could give.

His iPhone vibrates on the folding card table he set up in his kitchen. He glances at it, but decides it's more important to hold his head. He pushes harder into the pressure his hands give, like they can stanch the headache the same way they would stanch a blood flow. When it vibrates two more times, he bites his bottom lip, says, "Goddammit," and walks over to pick it up.

Kairi's texted once to say, "Meet us at IHOP." And again to clarify that it's the IHOP by the University. Riku scrunches his mouth together and hits ignore on the screen. The third text is from Cloud, saying, "Wanted to make sure you're okay."

Riku doesn't touch any buttons and places it back on the table, instead. He walks to the counter and holds his head in his hands again. He thinks, that's why he didn't get up the first time.

Riku spends the day time drinking coffee, chain-smoking on his patio, and ignoring his iPhone. He doesn't bother putting a shirt on, and shuffles around in bare feet, sliding his toes against his floor. Sometimes, he coughs into his open fist, stares at his hand, before wiping it on his stomach. His hand's wet a lot. Sometimes, he walks to the back of his apartment to look at the back room shaped like an overly large closet. He doesn't open the door, although he does lock and unlock it a few times. Sometimes, he starts to reply to Cloud's text, but he ends up throwing his iPhone on the floor. The fourth time he does it, he breaks the plastic cover, and crawls on his hands and knees to pick up the pieces.

At midnight, Riku finds a white v-neck in his closet, slips it on, and heads out his apartment door. He drives to a liquor store that's two blocks from his apartment, one right turn away, and next to a Shell gas station. When he enters the store, he avoids making eye contact with the cashier, heading immediately to the back of the store. There's no one else inside and his sandals flap overly loudly against the floor. The floor's made up of a cheap, off-white linoleum and the ceiling abuses fluorescent lighting. It makes Riku squint with a slightly headache as he walks along the back wall of refrigerated drinks, behind the rows of snacks. He winds his way back up to the front with a bottle of Sailor Jerry inside his right hand.

The front desk is short with cased shelves below containing brands of cigarettes, cigars, small canisters of legal incense, most of them names Riku doesn't have the patience to read and hasn't seen before. He considers buying Black Mamba briefly but remembers his cigarettes and lets the thought go. At the top of the desk, there's a laminated sheet of available lottery tickets for purchase. A gray register's mounted next to it, and then the desk runs out of room.

The cashier's somewhere in his mid-forties, sitting in a high wooden bar stool behind the register. He raises his eyebrows at Riku when he asks for ID after Riku sets the bottle of Sailor Jerry on the desk. Even after Riku hands his ID over and the cashier takes the time to swipe the card twice, double checking that he's the legal age, he still keeps his eyebrows raised. When the cashier scans the bottle, he asks Riku, "All for yourself?"

Riku feels his teeth grit. He says, "No," and it becomes difficult to control the irritation itching at his fingers, around his eyes.

The cashier shrugs, and shakes out a black plastic bag, placing the bottle inside. He says, "I hope not." He pushes the bag closer to Riku after he sets it on the counter top. His eyebrows are still raised.

Riku picks up the bag in the middle, hand gripping the bottle at its neck, and mutters, "Thanks." He walks to the door, shoulders it open, and leaves.

As Riku's shoving the bottle into his Jeep's trunk, muttering, "Fucking jackass," he hears the stress of someone's voice, another person's laugh. He glances up to see three people talking in loud, exaggerated voices around the back of a black Jetta pulled into a spot at the Shell station. Riku squints. One of the people falls backwards into the lighting hanging overhead by a pump station and Riku recognizes the mess of brown hair. It's Sora laughing, acting something out with wide hand gestures. He's wearing a jean jacket.

Riku closes his eyes. He says, "Perfect." He squeezes his eyes, but when he opens them, he can still make Sora out, now dancing around with long leaps of his legs. Whoever's with him keeps laughing.

Riku ducks behind the side of his car. His sandals twist in the gravel, crunching, as he bends into a crouch. He thinks he could leave, but that might draw more attention. When his headlights flash, Sora would definitely recognize his car, and probably text him before Riku made it home to check his iPhone. Riku's head starts to feel light, like it's swimming through the waves of Riku's thoughts, dizzy when he looks at the ground. It's so dark that it's difficult to see the white line of his parking space. He thinks Sora could look over and make out the shape of his Jeep any time now. Riku breathes out.

Then, he says, "Fuck it," and stands up to open his driver door. He reaches inside for his pack of Parliament Lights under his seat. Once his hand lands on it, he pulls it closer, flicks the lid open, plucks a cigarette out, and tucks it into the side of his mouth. He drops the open pack onto his seat and reaches around to the passenger door cup holder to fumble for the Bic lighter.

He doesn't hesitate as he leaves his driver door open and leans his back against the passenger door. He cups his hand around the cigarette and he flicks the lighter. The flame sparks. Riku inhales. He closes his eyes and breathes out.

After a handful of minutes, Riku hears footsteps thudding over, and Sora speak-whispering, "Wait, no, let's scare him, come on," loud enough for everyone in the parking lot to hear. He crushes his cigarette out against the bottom of his sandal and throws the butt underneath his car. He tries to fan his shirt out, wondering how badly the smoke clung to him – but he can feel it, wrapped around his teeth, his tongue, stuck underneath his pores, thick against the sweat behind his neck, hot between his fingers. He turns to shove the open pack off his seat. It spills onto the floor underneath his pedals, littering fresh cigarettes.

While he's still facing the inside of his car, he feels a sudden weight on his back. Sora's jumped on him, shouting, "Boo," in Riku's ear, crushing Riku's neck with his forearms as his feet attempt to climb up Riku's sides, using Riku's hips for leverage. Riku hears Kairi laugh behind him, and Sora's laughing by his ears, too, head wobbling back and forth. Riku's frown comes out harsh, heavy on the corners of his lips, and he staggers backwards, unbalanced by the extra weight. He reaches out to grip his car door for support. He says, "Sora, fucking cut it out, you're choking me." He feels his back arching unwillingly into Sora. He forces his leg to take a step back to even it out.

Sora shouts, "What was that, Riku? You know what the magic word is." He stretches Riku's name out, over-emphasizing the vowels, and he's still laughing. Riku reaches up with his other hand to tug Sora's forearm away from this throat and says, "Can you get off? Please?" His frown keeps growing, dragging down his mouth further. He thinks it's taking up the entire lower half of his face now.

Sora laughs again, "Sure, that's all you had to say, buddy." He releases his legs before swinging to gain enough momentum to jump down. Riku rubs his hand across his throat, before scrubbing it against jaw and forehead after Sora jumps off. Riku breathes in.

Sora's saying, "Hey, you're not mad, right? It was Kairi's idea anyway, I swear." Kairi's laughing in-between her words as she talks over him, "No, Sora, you're lying, Riku, he's lying."

Riku shifts around to face them, "No, whatever, it's fine." Kairi's smiling at him. She's pulled her hair into a ponytail. It swings behind her. She has on jeans, a low scoop tank top, and a buttoned cardigan. It makes Riku think about how long it's been since he's washed his jeans. She's wearing little purple flats. When she catches his gaze, she says, "Hi."

Riku's lips quirk upwards, half of a smile, and he says, "Hey, Kai. It's been a while." He holds one arm open as an invitation, and she takes it immediately, rushing up to hug him fully, squeezing him, while she says, "Too long, you jerk. I haven't seen you around campus at all." She releases him and looks into his face.

He shrugs, pushing her back lightly with a palm to her shoulder as he takes a step away. Sora speaks up before Riku can, "I saw him the other day, believe it or not."

Kairi laughs, "You're kidding." She scrunches her nose and winks at Riku like it's funny. Riku pushes a laugh out, but it's short, cutting off prematurely. He drums his fingers against his car door's backside and drags in a breath, "Well, I gotta get back home, but, uh, have a good night, guys." He pushes his mouth up into a smile, and starts to turn into his Jeep, bending to propel himself into the driver's seat, but Kairi says, "Wait, you're taking off? You can't hang out?"

Riku watches his dashboard, sitting half-way in the seat, just his legs dangling outside of the car. He hears Sora say, "Yeah, come on, Leon's with us. He was gonna drive back to his place. Midnight movie marathon."

Riku thinks about the bottle of Sailor Jerry in his trunk. He puts his keys in the ignition. He doesn't look back at them as he says, "Sorry, guys. Maybe another night, I gotta get home."

He shuts his car door, and leans out his rolled down window to look at them. Kairi's got worry twisting around her lips, crushed over a frown, and Sora's chewing at his mouth. Sora says, "I – I heard Cloud's coming. Maybe this would be a good time to, you know."

Riku pauses before turning his keys in the ignition. His Jeep starts up, engine whining as it wakes up. He tells them, "Tell him I say hi. Have a good night, guys." He offers a brief, fleeting smile before he backs out of the parking space and drives to his apartment.

In his apartment, on his bedroom floor, Riku takes three shots of Sailor Jerry and chases them all with a carton of Ocean Spray cranberry juice he finds at the back of fridge, in-between a carton of a dozen eggs and a loaf of sourdough bread that has mold seaming around the bottom of the plastic. He drinks straight from the carton, and after a while he drinks straight from the bottle, too.

He doesn't check his iPhone all night. He takes a shot every time it vibrates on the floor, beside his Dixie cup. The cup has an ocean theme on it, a little print of blue waves and small penciled fish circling the perimeter, that he's been pouring into. He downloads season two of _Bored to Death_ in torrents from an illegal website and watches them on his laptop propped against his knees, leaning backwards onto his pillows, his head tucked against the side of his bed. He passes out somewhere after his tenth shot, second bottle of water, eighth cigarette, and fifth episode.

In the morning, Riku's head pounds so violently that he throws up before he makes it out of bed, all over his floor, smearing the carpet, smelling like shit.

* * *

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Riku sits in a laminated wood desk with the name "Jean P" carved into in the upper left hand corner in the second horizontal row of his Geology lecture room. The Science building is a basement. The first floor, at ground level, has two staircases, twenty feet from each other, that lead downstairs to a hallway of rooms with low ceilings where all the of physical and biological science lectures Riku has heard about are held. He doesn't know what the upper part of the building is used for, or if those class rooms have higher ceilings, because he hasn't fulfilled his GE mathematical statistics requirement yet.

In Riku's seat, he raises his shoulders up so that his back slumps further into the chair. It starts to make his neck ache, a dull but consistent pull underneath his spinal cord, after a handful of minutes, but he stays like that. When the pain sharpens, hurt making his muscles seize together, which tightens his blood cells, squeezing them harder, he closes his mouth and holds his breath. He wonders if he could pass out from this, but he never does; his nose automatically begins to suck in oxygen until his mouth is forced open and he breathes heavily. The noise echos briefly in the room before he shuts his mouth and holds his breath again.

His professor is a short man who wears glasses and carries a Big Gulp of coffee tucked into his arm, grips it in his large right palm throughout the lecture, like he doesn't trust the table at the front of the room to do a good enough job. He ends the lecture ten minutes early when, after staring at the blank last slide of his power point on volcanic ash for two minutes, he can't figure out anything else to say. Riku didn't bring a notebook, so he picks up his empty backpack and holds it in front of him while he walks through the side door.

The hallway up to the first floor of the building has narrowed lighting, like the recess lights were never installed and there are only light blubs bolted to the ceiling on the sidelines, everywhere except for overhead, so it hits the sides of Riku's eyes like blinders. The backs of peoples' heads look blurred, their hair color smearing into the gray wall. It's one stream. The light blubs pop brightly. Riku tries to speed up, but his feet get tangled in one another, his right foot kicking too high as it steps, knocking into the back of his left ankle, and he stumbles into a fall – his palms come down hard on the tile floor, flattened, to catch his weight. He ends up rolling onto his shoulder, laying on his side, before turning and sitting up, facing his knees. He breathes out. The metallic fume of alcohol burns at the base of his throat. His tongue can taste it, stinging, when he swallows his thickened saliva. He tries to sit up straighter and presses the back of his palm to his mouth. He squeezes his eyes closed, biting his knuckles at the joint. He doesn't throw up. The light blubs keep popping brightly.

When Riku makes it to his Jeep in the parking lot, in-between a blue Ford truck with one back tire lower than the other and a Prius without license plates, he pushes his keys into his driver door and keeps his palm flush against his mouth.

He can see a water bottle sitting in the front cup holder. He turns his keys, swings the door open, and reaches for the bottle quickly, removing his palm from his mouth only to grip the bottle, twist the cap off and press it to his lips before bile rises in chunks to the opening of his mouth, weighing on his tongue. He swallows it down, and drinks, empties out the entire water bottle.

He crushes the plastic bottle in his hand when he finishes. He can feel air circulating in his stomach as the water settles down, intertwining with the heated nausea, sinking below his chest. It feels like he might throw up again, but as he leans against the side of his car door, it fades in gradual steps, seizing at times, contracting, before exhaling and loosening its grip. The nausea falls lower down into his stomach, deep, until it falls all the way out of his body, creeping down his legs before it hits the floor.

Riku throws the crushed bottle into his car. It smacks the passenger window. He climbs inside and sits in the drivers seat, rolls all of the windows down, leans back against the padding, and waits. He waits so long that his eyes close, lulling to the beat of his throbbing skull, pulsing with stressed pressure from the front of his head to the back, a thick headache.

He hears a honk behind him an hour later. He shifts around in his seat, frowning, to get a look out of the rear window, then turns forward to check his rear-view mirror. There's a black Jetta behind him. It's left blinker is on, like it's waiting for Riku to pull out so it can pull in. The front windshield looks tinted and Riku can't make out who's driving. His mouth pulls.

Riku unlocks his doors, and steps out. He leaves the driver door open and turns to walk to the Jetta. His slip-on Vans are uneven on the ground, like the floor's been measured out to rise and lower at different sections, large pieces of cement put together in a mismatch. He knocks on the Jetta's door. The driver window's clear black reflects his mirror image at him. He looks at how his hair's rucked up in the back.

Leon's in the driver's seat, lips twisted over something in-between a sneer and a smirk, as he lowers his window. Riku tells him, "You know that's illegal. You can only tint your back windows."

Leon raises his eyebrows, "You gonna write me up?"

Riku shrugs, "Depends." He wets his mouth, but his tongue's dry. "Are you gonna leave my Jeep the fuck alone?"

Leon barks out a laugh. He shakes his head, breaking eye contact with Riku to tap his fingers on his steering wheel. He says, "Come on, you don't have any class, do you? There're no spots."

Riku shrugs again, putting more emphasis into his shoulders. "Not my problem. You shouldn't have signed up for an eleven fifteen class. It's a popular time."

"Don't be such a dick." Leon rolls his eyes. His mouth has become more serious, unforgiving as it makes a frown.

Riku can't convince himself to care. He says, "Hey, tell Cloud I say hi." He turns to walk back to his car, and hears Leon honk twice, but he just keeps walking. When he hauls himself inside his Jeep, he hears Leon's Jetta reversing before making a sharp u-turn, the engine cranking up.

Riku frowns at himself, and tells his rear-view mirror, "It's not my problem," as he looks at his eyes. He's got black circles cradling the undersides of his lids. He makes a sneer, mouth contorting, and says, "Fuck."

* * *

><p><p>

Sora leaves a voice-mail on Riku's iPhone that Riku listens to on speaker while he stands in his kitchen and stares into his fridge. From Riku's folding card kitchen table, Sora's saying, "You really didn't have to be such a jerk, honestly. It's just a fucking parking space, Riku, and I shouldn't have to make this call in the first place. Might do you some good to actually pick up sometime." Riku closes his refrigerator door and presses seven on his keypad to delete the message.

He texted Cloud twenty minutes ago to say, "What's up," but Cloud hasn't responded. Riku wonders if it's been too many days. Reno finally texted to reply, "I know. Wanna re-up?" Riku's typed, "Got anything else," and saved it in a draft but hasn't pressed send.

He lays down on his couch. His body dips uncomfortably, a dig into his lower back, from where the three cushions are missing.

His face feels warm, around the ends of his cheeks spreading inwards towards the backs of his eyes. He blinks. He touches his fingers to the undersides of his eyelids. They're wet when he pulls them away. His face becomes soaked, salt and water dripping down, heavy and heated, splashing hard against his lower jaw, his bottom lip, leaking into the inside of his nostrils. He breathes out, and the sound clogs, tangling with mucous. He opens his mouth, but the salt and water just drip inside, falling over the edge of his top lip. It surrounds his tongue, swishing to the back of his open throat. He sits up and spits it out into his open hand. He sits on his couch, in the dip where the first cushion's been taken out, spitting into his hand until its drenched. He doesn't stop crying.

Two hours later, Riku does a shot of Sailor Jerry on his patio while he holds a lit cigarette in-between his index and middle fingers. The first shot hits hard at his sore, dry throat. A burn sinks into his esophagus, and he swallows a couple of times, coughing. He thinks he should have had a chaser, but puts his cigarette to his lips instead and inhales. The smoke irritates his throat again. He shrugs and pours another shot. The second time, when it goes down, it doesn't burn as much.

After, he stares at his back room shaped like an overly large closet until his eyes feels sore, rimmed red, crust cracking, sharp, as he blinks. He closes them and his head begins to pulse. It's hard to feel where he is. When he reaches his hands out, it's a blind grip, grasping unknowingly on what his fingers touch. He tries to picture how his hallway looks, the way the door to the back room is shaped, but nothing comes up, a hazy black, and he gropes at the door knob. When his palm brushes over the door knob, he wets his mouth and flexes his fingers, gripping dumbly to open the door.

He walks into the room, shuts the door behind him, and then opens his eyes. It's the same darkness that he'd had under his lids and his pupils are confused about how to adjust, unable to dilate or contract. He reaches up and tugs the chain cord hanging from the overhead fan. The chain rattles when he lets go, and the one working light blub flickers twice before it stays on. He looks at the glass table for a while.

At six o'clock, Riku's hair is damp from a cold shower and his shirt is twisted around his hip bones from sweat. He hears a knock on his door three times before he walks to the door and clasps the knob in his palm. A frown winds its way down his mouth. He tries not to yawn at the contact, but the feeling edges away before he can, fading into a kind of numbness. He's not sure what movement his lips are making now, if his mouth's frowning at all. It's unresponsive to him. The muscles around his lips have lost their feeling, like his three front teeth, prickling with a hesitant immobilization. He licks his tongue over his teeth.

Then, he breathes in and tugs the door open.

For a moment, Riku's vision is in-between focusing, and there's an overlap of Cloud's face as it lines up, before it becomes perfectly clear, strangely visible. Riku can see each individual blonde hair separate from each other on Cloud's head, the outline of his white v-neck shirt, thick, against his collarbones, how his hand's gripping his backpack strap, with his fingers curled over onto one another, nails trimmed close to the cuticle. Cloud's skin tone is bright, creamy – his eyes light, watery, pink around the ridges.

Riku wonders if he's dreaming it. He grasps the door knob hard, flexing, but he can't feel the jab of metal into the center of his palm. He wonders if this is real.

Cloud's mouth twists downwards, and stays that way, as it says to him, "What the hell."

Riku watches Cloud's mouth.

When Riku fails to do anything else, unable to focus or un-focus his eyes on Cloud's mouth, the frown its making, Cloud steps forward. Riku still can't tell if he's real or not. Cloud's jeans are cuffed above his sandals. He walks through the door, side-stepping Riku, who belatedly moves aside to align with the door only after Cloud's through the threshold. Riku shuts the door by turning so that his back pushes against it and taking small steps backwards until he collides into the frame. His back doesn't feels the impact.

He wets his mouth. He decides he's dreaming when Cloud puts his backpack on the floor and the noise rings so familiar, almost an exact echo of when Cloud did this a week ago. It doesn't make sense that Cloud would be doing this again, and Riku's head feels foggy as it tries to grapple with the thought, unable to turn up any logical conclusion, simply fizzling out in a blurred imprint of memory from last week, Cloud's skin, his smell, his sweat, his shirt on the hard wood floor – of the dream he doesn't remember from last night but the feeling he does, waking up like his body's so numb, so paralyzed from sleep that it's a part of his mattress and he can't tell where he's laying, what end of the bed he's at, what position he's curled into, if his knees are stretched out straight or bent, if there's a pillow under him, what wall he'll be facing when he opens his eyes.

He watches Cloud stare at his couch.

Cloud shakes his head, "I don't get you." He doesn't look at Riku. Cloud's head is tilted downwards toward the couch, mouth ruffled with a frown. His bangs stick to his forehead, and his hand's in a fist in his jean pockets. His back muscles look like they can't relax, tense in a contraction as his shoulder blades meet each other from underneath his t-shirt.

Riku feels the ache, faintly, in his palm from the door knob, his back warming with heat from slamming into the door frame, as he walks towards Cloud. He places his hand against Cloud's shoulder. He can't feel if Cloud's muscles are any less tense, if they've calmed, if they're bending into his palm or pulling away, pushing up or not.

Riku says, "Why are you here?" It's hard to concentrate on measuring the words out, pronouncing them like he memorized they sound with the way Cloud's t-shirt feels present and un-present beneath his hand, with how Cloud hasn't looked at him yet since he opened the door, only raised his head to stare at the window behind Riku's couch. Riku wonders if Cloud's here or not. He thinks, this is what he would imagine. He feels a thrum under his ribcage, and it sinks lower to hiss with heat below his bellybutton. He thinks he's dreaming.

Cloud shrugs, his face twists with confusion, and he tells Riku, "I was worried."

Riku laughs, feels the pressure on his upper cheeks from the force of it, and smacks his palm on Cloud's shoulder. He doesn't know how hard it hits, maybe it was a tap and not a smack, maybe it will leave a bruise, a red-purple wide mark, maybe Cloud didn't notice. Cloud doesn't do anything. Riku thinks, Cloud's not real. He's a dream. Riku says, "You're sweet."

Cloud turns, shifting his torso to face Riku, legs a few steps behind as they turn to align. Riku doesn't get to see Cloud's face before Cloud catches Riku's hand in his, wrapping his fingers around Riku's wrist. It's warm, and Riku watches it, staring, as his sight begins to focus. Riku says, "What're you doing here?"

Cloud shrugs and tugs Riku into a hug, guiding Riku towards his chest with an arm across his shoulder, tucking Riku's head into his neck. "I just am."

Riku knows Cloud's not real, then. He breathes against Cloud's t-shirt, inhaling the cotton before exhaling it, staring at the threads that make up the shirt. Briefly, he wonders how tightly Cloud's holding him.

Later, Cloud's on top of Riku on Riku's bare mattress. Cloud's shirt has been torn on the shoulder from where Riku dug his nails in and refused to let go, only pulling, until the material stretched and tore, ripping off a chunk of cotton that Riku knotted in his hand, fisting, as he bluntly scratched Cloud's shoulder, pulling him down. Cloud's jeans are down to his knees.

It doesn't satisfy Riku. For a moment, in the middle, his eyes unfocus and he thinks, stupidly, that he's having sex, this is sex. He can feel the heat of Cloud's body, hear the friction of their skin rubbing raw against each other with such clarity. He can feel it, but it's separate from him, it's the strict mechanisms of their bodies moving into each other; he's distracted by the smell of the opened foil condom wrapper, the metallic tang in his mouth from when he tore it open with his teeth, the rubber latex, the bottle of open lubricant, how his stomach feels empty from neglect.

In this moment, Cloud looks down at him. There's sweat dripping down his chin, his is face wet. His arms are bracketed over Riku's head, and Riku can see the muscles shake with exertion. Cloud's pupils are blown. He moves his face closer like he's going to kiss Riku but instead he says, "I love you."

Riku's eyes are still unfocused when he says, "I love you too." Then, he says, "Fuck me." 


	3. three

_Hey Girl, Is He Everything You Wanted In Me_

_Three_

Riku lies in his bed while the sun filters through the window above him, smearing across his body from his legs down. His skin feels itchy, red hot, from dried sweat and come, lube, the friction. His iPhone's on his stomach, right above his bellybutton, lying length-wise. He'd fumbled for it underneath his bed when he'd woken up two hours ago, aware even as his eyes hesitated to open fully that there was empty, dead air next to him, no body weight, no one else tangled in the sheets with him.

Cloud left a voicemail an hour ago. Riku keeps opening it on the touch screen, but shutting it down before the beginning can play. All he's heard so far is the sharp hitch of Cloud's breath as he inhales before he speaks.

Riku's head aches violently when he hears the inhale, and it's what convinces him to stop. He keeps trying, though. His voicemail box says, "You have one skipped message. Your first message is," and then Cloud breathes. Riku hangs up.

His fingers feel numb still, as he grips the phone in his fist and throws it at the floor. It bounces on the carpet face down. Riku shrugs his sheets over his shoulders and face. He turns to watch the wall, just his eyes peeking around the sheet. He tells the wall, "I'm so stupid." The wall looks back at him blankly. He pounds the side of his fist into it and says louder, "I really don't need this."

The wall doesn't listen. So Riku does it again and again. His lungs heave, and his throat starts to crack, sore, around his syllables.

Riku decides to skip class. He sits in his Jeep in the parking lot below his apartment building and stares at the steering wheel. He's wearing a pair of gray sweats with elastic around the ankles and the pockets ripped out that he found strewn with the legs apart, inside out, on his closet floor and a soft blue crew neck. He's been gripping his gear shift for twenty minutes. He can't convince himself to switch it from park to drive. His arm won't make the downward motion. His lips twist as he grits his teeth and says, "Come on." But his arm never makes the movement. He ends up spending the hour and twenty minutes he would have spent in class in his car with the driver window down, chain smoking half a pack of Parliament Lights.

When he finishes, he leaves all of his car windows cracked before exiting so that it can air out, but thinks of how the smell is already stuck on his clothes. He imagines wisps of smoke twirling around him, tangled, as he ascends the stairs to his apartment. His neighbor, Roxas, who he's met three times, heads down the stairs at the same time that Riku heads up, and Roxas curls his nose as he passes. Riku knows the stench must be thick. He can't smell it at all. Roxas briefly waves and mutters, "Hi." He brushes by, taking the stairs in twos. Riku calls over his shoulder, "Hey."

Roxas doesn't say anything else. Riku shrugs.

Later, Riku lies next to his couch on the hard wood floor. He tried to lie on the couch, but his back hurt in the middle from the missing cushions, so he lies on the floor and watches his ceiling. His iPhone's on the couch. Sometimes, Riku flirts with it, lifting his hand to the couch cushion to trace the phone's outline, before dropping his hand back down onto his stomach.

He thinks about all the excuses Cloud could have come up with. But none of them are what he wants to hear so he says, "Shut up," out loud to split his thoughts off. The resounding quiet is stiff, swollen, as it eats up the space in his living room.

He turns onto his side and considers going back to sleep. His eyes feel heavy enough. He wonders what he missed in economics today.

Then, his iPhone vibrates, and he reaches up lazily for it, tugging at it until it falls off the edge of the couch. It hits the side of his face mid-vibration when his misjudges the distance, and he says, "Ow, shit." He rolls onto his back and holds the phone in front of him. Sora's calling. There's a picture of Sora as his caller ID taken from last semester, inside Sora's dorm room on campus. Sora's shrugging his shoulders up as he makes an innocent expression, eyes opened widely. They had borrowed Kairi's laptop to Photoshop a yellow halo with the paint brush tool around Sora's head. Riku answers the call.

There's static and Riku waits for it to clear before he says, "Helllllo."

Riku hears Sora sigh into the receiver, and Sora says, "Hi. What're you doing?"

Sora doesn't sound particularly demanding or angry, but his words are clipped short. Riku shrugs, and then says, "I don't know. Nothing."

Sora sighs again. Riku almost laughs, but doesn't. Sora says, "I'm coming over."

Riku wrinkles his eyebrows, frowning, and says, "No, you aren't. Why?"

Sora says, "Don't be ridiculous." There's some shuffling in the background, and Riku wonders where Sora is, if anyone else can hear. Sora begins to sound impatient – still not angry, but like Riku should know, like he's explained this before.

Riku says, "Where are you? And I'm not being ridiculous. This is my house."

"I'm in the car, I don't care whose house it is. Be there in twenty." Sora pauses and then says, "Try to look decent." He sounds firm.

Riku says, "Fuck you very much." He hangs up and pushes his phone away from him. He turns over on his floor and closes his eyes like he's going to go to sleep. He knows he won't. He's too aware of the light flitting beyond his eyelids now, the sounds of traffic outside and from the parking lot below his patio, how his legs feel uncomfortable with his knees pressed together, how his neck lolls without the support of a pillow.

Riku turns onto his back again and sits up. He says, "Fuck it" out loud into the open space. He waits for Sora on his patio, continuously debating whether or not he should smoke the three cigarettes he has left in his pack, and continuously deciding to save them for later. He'll probably need them more when Sora leaves.

To his credit, Sora's only three minutes late. He knocks on Riku's front door four times in a row. Riku saunters in from the patio, quietly shutting the sliding glass door.

Riku squints through the peep hole when he reaches the door. He gets a fish-eye view of the top of Sora's head, brown spikes looking back at him. It makes Riku dizzy to stare for too long, so he calls, "Who is it?" He watches as Sora raises his head, hears another knock, and can barely make out the dissatisfied shape of Sora's mouth. Riku's mouth twists into a smirk. Sora says, "Come on, Riku. Open up."

Riku can't help himself when he responds. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers. I'm just trying to be safe. Sir."

Sora doesn't laugh at all. Riku watches. Sora says, "It's me, come on."

Riku breathes out through his nose, his smirk shifting into a sneer, and he opens the door. Sora blinks at him, like maybe he wasn't expecting that to work and he'd been prepared to fight for longer. It makes Riku struggle to keep the door open. He says, "What."

Sora's got on an over-sized white polo and skinny jeans. His feet look awkward in contrast in a pair of black DC sneakers. Riku tells him, "You look like shit." Then he squints, "Is that your shirt?"

Sora blinks again, mouth hesitating as it draws open. He says, "What, I - no, what does that have to do with anything?" He presses his palm against his stomach, like he's suddenly self conscious, and slides it down. "It's Leon's. You're the one who looks terrible."

Riku shrugs. He takes a step away from the door frame, and turns to walk into his apartment. He says, "Whatever."

Riku realizes he doesn't have a plan when he makes it to his kitchen and doesn't know what to busy himself with. He opens the fridge and hears Sora shut the front door, his loud footsteps until he's standing in the kitchen, too, behind Riku.

Sora says, "What happened to your couch?"

Riku leans forward to peer into the fridge. All he has are three cans of Diet Coke, a stick of butter, and a Tupperware of Mac & Cheese. "I lost my cushions."

Sora says, "Uh-huh." Riku hears Sora shuffling. Then it's quiet, so Riku picks up a Diet Coke. The cool air has chilled his face from the extended exposure. He shuts the fridge door and doesn't turn around as he pops the top of the can open. He says, "You want anything?"

Sora says, "No." Then, "Well, yeah, I want you to come see a movie with me and Kai." Riku hears a chair scrape back as he imagines Sora pulling it out at the kitchen folding card table to sit down.

Riku says, "What movie?" He stares at his fridge. He doesn't take a sip of Diet Coke.

Sora says, "_Drive_'s playing at three. It's supposed to be really good."

Riku turn around slowly, feet making careful steps until they face Sora, sticking to the tile floor with sweat. Sora's smiling at Riku with half of his mouth. Riku says, "Really." He gestures down at his clothes when Sora doesn't do anything except for raise an eyebrow. "I'm not exactly dressed."

Sora shrugs, slapping his hands on his thighs. "That's not my problem. I told you to look decent." He stands and walks up to Riku quickly. Sora swoops his hand in, hovering around the Diet Coke Riku's opened up, and says, "Are you gonna drink that?" When Riku doesn't say anything, Sora pulls it from Riku's hand and takes a sip, briefly saying, "Thanks," cut-off from raising the can to his mouth.

Riku's startled into a reaction, saying, "Hey, jerk, I asked you if you wanted anything," shoving at Sora's shoulder lightly, almost beginning to smile.

Sora starts into a laugh, dodging Riku's hands. He says, "Too slow," in a sing-song and turns to scamper into the living room. He raises the can above his head so that he doesn't spill, and Riku watches the smile grow on his face. He takes a step forward to chase Sora.

When Riku finally catches Sora, pinning Sora to the armrest of his couch with one hand on Sora's shoulder and the other on his waist, Sora's back bent over it, laughing even as his head hangs upside down over the couch, Riku standing above him, Sora says, "Come to the movie, please. I'll even buy your ticket." He's still holding the Diet Coke in an outstretched hand over Riku's hard wood floor.

Riku's smile falters. "Sora, you know I'm busy." He can't see Sora's face, but he hears Sora say, "You're always busy." Then pause. "It's time."

Riku releases Sora's shoulder, relaxing the hand on Sora's waist. "It's time for what." He still can't see Sora's face as Sora responds, "Time to move on."

* * *

><p>Riku doesn't go to the movie, but he does chat with Sora for another couple of hours. He finds out that Sora caught Kairi trying to slip a tall, slim girl, holding a faux leather jacket in one hand and wearing a crew neck Sora had seen Kairi wear to bed two days ago, out of their shared dorm room before Sora's eight o'clock class yesterday morning.<p>

Riku had just scrunched his nose, staring at Sora across his folding card kitchen table, "Again? Jesus."

Sora had laughed, "I know. Who knew Kai had it in her."

Riku had shrugged and taken a sip from a freshly opened Diet Coke, "Don't you guys ever get tired of being an RA?" Riku thought, he couldn't imagine living on campus for so long. Sora laughed again, and before he could respond, Riku had said, "Hey, go to the store for me. We'll call it even since you didn't buy me a ticket. I need eggs."

After a while, Sora had left, stepping out of Riku's front door with a wide smile and small wave. He squeezed Riku into a full-bodied hug.

* * *

><p>Riku sits on his couch, huddled underneath his bed sheet. He wrapped it around his shoulders, tucking the ends over each other to make a cocoon. His iPhone is under his feet curled up on he couch, and he kicks it accidentally sometimes as he shifts beneath the sheet.<p>

Reno had responded to say, "vicodin," to Riku's belated text. Riku had immediately replied, "Yea." He doesn't think about it, but when he kicks his iPhone again, his bare toes running over the screen, he thinks about Cloud's inhale in his voicemail inbox.

He listens to Cloud's voicemail around midnight. He's on the couch with his iPhone placed on his chest and the speaker on. His bedsheet is on the floor. His bottle of Sailor Jerry is open on the floor next to him, fresh ocean-themed Dixie cup beside it. His three cigarettes are lined up neatly in front of the bottle. His voicemail inbox tells him, "You have one skipped message. Your first skipped message is." Cloud's breath hitches before his voice breaks into the room, "Sorry I had to take off this morning. I, ah, had class. I - listen, Riku, I can't remember why we broke up. That month. It's like." Riku stares at his phone. Cloud tells him with a lowered voice, "It's like, it never really happened or something. A stupid thing we said to each other. Why do we do that? I can't. I can't do this."

Riku stares. Cloud's saying, "Can I see you later? I just, I want to see you." Riku holds his breath.

* * *

><p>Later, around three in the morning, Riku will call Cloud while laying face down on his bare mattress, legs cold from losing his pants after showering. Cloud will answer on the second ring, voice surprisingly awake as he mutters, "Hey."<p>

Riku's voice will sound more hoarse when he says, "Can you come over? I want to see you, too."

Cloud will say, "Yes," and Riku will believe him because he'll say it with such unbroken conviction, such assurance, that Riku can imagine he's already in the car, already turning around the corner, pulling into the parking lot.

Before he hangs up, Riku will say, "I don't want to break up, either."


End file.
